fire in the water
by QuietLittleVoices
Summary: When Dean laughed it was a broken, humourless thing that made Cas' heart cry out for him. "That's funny," he said, though his voice was bleak. "I never thought I'd live long enough to die of cancer." ((Someone asked for Cas' POV of 'let's start fires for heaven's sake' so here it is))


**A/N: **Title from the song by Fiest.

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Cas wasn't unobservant or dumb; he knew Dean was in pain almost before the man himself. But he didn't say anything, figuring if it was bad enough then Dean would mention it. It was probably just stress from the last hunt they went on, or his aching bones settling. When Dean said it was nothing, he took it at face value.

But January Thirteenth would always be cemented into his memory. It snowed, and Cas had to drive to the hospital with Dean passed out in the backseat. The doctor's took Dean away from him for tests and wouldn't let Cas see him until he lied and said they were common-law married. It was a lie they'd used before so both Cas and Sam could get into the hospital to see Dean when he was hurt and help him make a break for it.

Even when they let Cas in to see him, they wouldn't say anything, claiming they needed to be sure. Cas was frustrated, but he could tell Dean was more so than he. If the doctor's didn't talk to them soon, Cas worried for their well-being.

"Are you certain you don't want to tell Sam?" Cas asked again, looking at Dean expectantly.

"No need to worry him," Dean answered with a nod. "If this isn't anything, he doesn't need to know."

With that exchange, the doctor finally walked in looking like he wanted to talk to them. "Mister Winchester," he said, looking at Dean and nearly ignoring Cas. "You appear to have stage four liver cancer."

When Dean laughed it was a broken, humourless thing that made Cas' heart cry out for him. "That's funny," he said, though his voice was bleak. "I never thought I'd live long enough to die of cancer."

Dean didn't want to tell Sam right away, though Cas didn't know why. Wouldn't Sam knowing make it easier? But he went along with what Dean wanted anyway. He knew Dean didn't want to be pitied, but he couldn't help wanting to make everything easier for him. He didn't want Dean to strain himself; he wanted Dean to get better.

"I'm not fucking fragile!" Dean yelled at him one afternoon. "I'm not gonna let this... _thing _take over my life!"

Cas was silent, walking towards Dean. He took the bowl from his hands and placed it to the side, then wrapped him in a hug, resting his head under Dean's chin. He listened to his heartbeat and breathing for a moment. "I know," he breathed into Dean's collar bone. "I know."

It was a week after the diagnosis that Dean finally decided they should tell Sam. The younger Winchester was visiting the bunker with his wife and two kids for supper, and they were all in the living room having 'boy time' as his wife affectionately called it.

"What's gotten into you guys?" Sam asked, laughing nervously, seeing that neither Dean nor Cas was drinking.

Dean cleared his throat awkwardly and looked at Cas, who nodded in what he hoped was an encouraging way. He muttered something under his breath and then turned to Sam. "I'm dying," he said simply. "Cancer. Too late to treat."

Sam's face fell and his eyes looked broken – but he didn't cry. He stood up from his seat, though, and hauled Dean to his feet by his lapels so fast that Cas prepared himself to stop them from killing each other. But Sam just wrapped his arms around Dean and pulled him close, looking like he wanted to shrink down and disappear, like he wished to be smaller than Dean like when they were growing up. And Dean grabbed him back just as tight, clearly wishing the same.

Watching them, after knowing them as long as Cas had, he almost felt like he could read their minds again.

Cas moved his room to one closer to Dean's the next week, but he didn't spend much time in the bed. He couldn't sleep, most nights – he never really learned how to – so he tiptoe'd into Dean's room and sat in his chair for hours, watching the slow rise and fall of his chest to prove to himself that _yes_, Dean was still alive. Still there.

One night, sleep overtook him, reaching out and pulling him under as he was counting Dean's heartbeats, but he was pulled back by Dean's hands. They were standing so close that Cas could _feel_ Dean's heartbeats against his chest, could feel them rattling against his ribs as if they were his own, and he could see the conflict in Dean's eyes, the anger. But he hadn't let go.

Cas felt Dean's hand slide up his throat, and for a wild moment he thought that Dean was going to choke him, but it just settled there like a caress.

"Why?" Dean asked quietly, not looking in Cas' eyes no matter how much he wanted him to.

Cas swallowed uncomfortably. "I need to know. Be sure you're still... alive," he managed, the words coming from somewhere deep inside him, ripped out by his offending throat and teeth and tongue.

Dean's knees gave out under him but Cas was ready, wrapping him tightly in his arms. He didn't know how it happened but their mouths were on each other, hard enough to bruise and draw blood and it _wasn't enough_, but within moments the pace changed to feather light brushes of lips as they stepped to Dean's bed and fell onto it. Cas landed on top of Dean but rolled them over.

"I'm not breakable, Cas," Dean said, voice deep from something, be it anger or arousal.

Cas looked away. "I know," he said, and his voice was thick – the words coming from the same place as before but the path wasn't so smooth anymore. "I don't want to loose you," he admitted, his breath catching and he lets out a dry sob. "If you die..."

"When." Deans voice was soft as he corrected him, leaning forwards to press deep kisses against Cas' mouth. "_When_ I die, Cas. I'm human; it was never an 'if'." When he laughed it was the same noise as the one in the hospital two weeks prior, the one Cas never wanted to hear again. "At least we know now how much time is left on my clock."

Cas glared at him. "Don't make light of it, Dean."

In response, Dean just pressed his lips together and reached up to run his fingers through Cas' hair. "I know," he said softly. "I'm just doing what I have to."

Dean took a turn for the worse on the third week, and they stayed in the hospital for four days. During those days, filled with medication and the smell of antiseptic, he wrote his will. It wasonly a formality, as Dean Winchester was already both legally dead and a felon. But he wanted to make everything as easy for Sam and Cas when he passed as he could.

"I want a hunter's funeral," he told Cas matter-of-factually when he was conscious for a few moments. "'N I want you 'n Sammy to take my ashes to the Grand Canyon."

Cas moved his chair closer to Dean's bed and reached in, taking one of this frail hands between both of his healthy ones. "Why don't I just take _you_ there?" he asked quietly, his voice hopefully. "As soon as they let you come home, we can leave."

Dean's laugh was hysterical, and it was worse than that first time in the hospital. It was broken and it was corrupted and it was everything that Dean wasn't. "Look at me, Cas! I'll barely be able to _walk_! How the Hell 'm I 'sposed to survive a road trip that long?"

"Why not?" Cas demanded. "One more road trip in the Impala. We'll go see the Grand Canyon, and anything else you want to on the way. I know you miss it." He was talking through tears by the end, wiping them away angrily, aggressively. "One last adventure."

Dean shook his head slowly, reaching out of the bed to dry Cas' tears. When the action proved futile, he reached up with the other hand, too, stretching the cords attached to him as he pulled Cas into the circle of his arms, cradling his head against the place where his shoulder met his neck as Cas cried, body shaking in nearly silent sobs. "I can't, Cas," he said brokenly. "I wouldn't make it.

Cas tilted his head back, face wet with tears, to look into Dean's sad, green eyes. So much older than the body that housed them. "Couldn't you try?" he asked.

"I'd rather die silently, at home."

"No you wouldn't!" Cas argued, almost yelling right in Dean's face. "You're Dean Winchester! You've said the world countless times. You can't just lay down and let Death take you! You've worked too hard to get this far." _You can't just leave me like this_, he thought, but he didn't say it. Cas didn't want to add to the already insurmountable guilt that Dean harboured.

When Dean looked at him next it was with the eyes of a dead man. "Watch me."

The week they got home was hard. Dean was pale and thin and could hardly leave his room, which Cas had turned into a makeshift hospital. The machines set up around him crowded the floorspace, making it hard for Cas to navigate through. Every night, Cas lay tucked in against Dean's side, head on his chest, listening to his heartbeat – counting them and making sure they kept a steady pace. Looking back, he wasn't sure how long he was awake for in a row, but it didn't matter in the long run. Staying up all night to make sure Dean was alive was more important than anything else.

A month passed and Dean was both frail and weak, but Cas convinced him to go to the Grand Canyon. During the fifth week, they were on the road, stopping at everything that catched their eye and ignoring the pointed looks that people gave them on the way. Cas did the driving, watching Dean sleep in the backseat with the rear view mirror, but he encouraged Dean to drive the home stretch. It was slow, but they made it, and Cas helped Dean walk as close to the edge as they could.

Cas watched Dean as he looked out over the void. "I can't believe I almost missed this," Dean breathed, and Cas pulled his arms in tighter.

If he'd been thinking clearly, Cas would have realized how ironic it was that Dean died on a Thursday – the very day they returned to the bunker. They'd gone for a nap, but Cas had restless energy so he'd left the room to make himself something to eat. And when he got back, the heart monitor attached to Dean's arm had gone flat, a monotone buzz emanating from the cold, metal machine.

Cas didn't cry, not then. He'd called Sam, who then got to the bunker so fast Cas knew he'd broken every speed law there was on the way, and so he lead him to Dean's room. Cas left them alone, leaving Sam to start his grieving in peace, but as he shut the door behind himself he heard Sam's sobs. They were only slightly muffled by the door.

He put his back against the wall next to the closed door and slid down slowly, resting his elbows on his knees and putting his head in his hands. That's when he started crying, the emotions rocking his frame, thin from weeks of taking care of Dean. That's how Sam found him when he finally left the room, and so he sat down on the floor next to Cas and put his arms around then fallen and they grieved together.

They gave Dean the hunter's funereal he asked for, building up a pyre and setting it alight as the sun started to go down, and it looked like the forest is burning down around them, as if the universe was mourning the fallen hunter, too. It was all ash by the time darkness descended, and Cas wasn't sure he'd ever see the sun rise again.


End file.
